LAWYERS are used to playing around with words.

So when Alex French swapped the writs for writing, he discovered it wasn’t too much of a career jump.

“Working in the law,” he tells me, “there’s a lot of discussion about language, what it means, and how you use it in different ways to mean different things.

“My first passion was script writing. I grew up in an era of perhaps the best sitcoms ever written and what always struck me about them was the intelligent writing.

“Then I thought about writing a novel and the opportunities that would offer up to describe certain events in a comic way, and that really interested me.”

And naturally when Alex decided on a subject matter, it had to be the law itself.

The Lawyer who caught the Crabs, tells the story of provincial solicitor Max Standen who find himself in a dusty and disorganised practice.

Both he and the business are past their prime but now that his partner Giles Furnell has been suspended, Max must tackle an array of bizarre and often outrageous legal cases on his own.

With a client who is supposed to be dead but isn’t, a malicious tattoo artist with a hate for women, and the ongoing dodgy antics of a local Premier League Football Club, Max has his hands full.

What he really needs is a more-than-capable assistant. And that assistant comes in the form of Tracey, a single mum and a feisty, newly qualified solicitor.

Not only does Tracey make an impression on the clients, she makes an impression on Max too.

Gazette:

Alex adds: “It is set locally and there are references to East Anglia throughout, including Colchester Zoo. The fictional town of Milverton could be Colchester or Ipswich from the references.

“I would say it’s a fast moving and episodic comedy of misunderstandings. I like John O’Farrell and his dry sense of humour and I’m also a huge fan of Tom Sharpe’s books, which I suppose you could say my book kind of falls into the same category.”

Born and brought up in Nottingham, Alex left school at 16 to go and work for a local law firm as a junior clerk.

Eventually finding himself working for Redbridge Council, he moved out to Essex and got a job in Ipswich working for a local legal practice and then a full time lecturer in law at Suffolk College before transferring what is now known as University of Suffolk.

Now living in Alresford, as well as writing, Alex is still a sometime employment lawyer, HR consultant, and university lecturer, now at Anglia Ruskin University.

“I started writing the book in 2014,” he says, “and finished it mid 2016. The rest of the time was editing and getting it published. I’ve left it open for a sequel but my editor said this one would make quite a good screenplay or even a sitcom.”

The Lawyer who caught the Crabs by Alex French is now on sale in a few independent local bookshops as well as online.